"Domain Expansion," Satoru grinned as Shalaxi's eyes widened with fear and recognition. She'd seen a domain before, which meant she'd gone against a Jujutsu Sorcerer before. But, then again, Satoru mused, considering he'd already met a Jujutsu Space Marine Sorcerer, it really wasn't much of a surprised that an ancient and powerful Cursed Spirit, like Shalaxi Helbane, would've already met and fought one before. Briefly, Satoru wondered if the Cursed Spirit before him, powerful though it might've been, stood a chance against Ryomen Sukuna - at least, as Satoru remembered him – and, ironically, Shalaxi might've stood a far better chance, given her propensity for absolute martial dominance.

As it did a lot of things, Infinity countered her expertise hard. That wasn't Shalaxi's fault, Satoru mused. It was simply the hand of fate, the cards that were dealt to each and every living creature. He was born with Six-Eyes and Limitless, becoming the Honored One, as close to a god a Jujutsu Sorcerer could possibly be – and now he was becoming even greater than he ever was, greater than any other member of the Gojo family, greater than even Tengen or Ryomen Sukuna (at least, the version that killed him).

"Unlimited Void," Satoru whispered. And his innate domain expanded all around him. This time, by expending twice the usual amount of Cursed Energy, Satoru doubled the range of Unlimited Void, ensuring that every single inch of the ruined Hall of Khaine was covered in it – and ensuring no escape route for the Cursed Spirit. An infinitely-repeating stream of information quickly overtook Shalaxi Helbane. And, regardless of her Cursed Energy Reserves, Output, or Raw Power, the Cursed Spirit froze, eyes wide and stance loose as all her senses, physical or otherwise, were bombarded by the truest center of the concept of Infinity, where nothing and everything existed all at once.

Sure, Cursed Spirits were more resistant, perhaps, to the onslaught of Infinity, but anything with senses and a mind to process what the senses perceived was beholden to the Unlimited Void.

And so Shalaxi stopped moving.

Satoru smiled as he maintained his domain for over fifteen seconds, trapping the Cursed Spirit in decades' worth of information, its inhuman mind likely breaking apart just to try and make sense of it all. He walked forward, calmly, lowering his arms to the sides. Satoru stopped a meter away from the Cursed Spirit, noting – idly – that Shalaxi Helbane looked a lot taller when she wasn't blurring all over the place all the time. Inhuman physique, made entirely of Cursed Energy, forged through a means that eluded him – for now. What was clear, however, was that Shalaxi Helbane was but a part of a greater whole. And, if Satoru had to guess, the whole was the Thirsty Bitch. In fact, one could argue that, by technicality, Shalaxi wasn't a Cursed Spirit at all, but was merely the product of one – a product that had its own limited form of sapience and independence, but was ultimately beholden to the true Cursed Spirit, which was the Thirsty Bitch. "And that's the end of that. I know you can't hear or understand me right now, but that's not about to stop me from yapping. You're strong. I'll admit that. If we'd met when I was younger, then you would've diced me to minced meat before I could've even noticed. But that's neither here nor there."

Satoru smiled. This entity, this thing, before him was nothing more than a mass of Cursed Energy that followed a code, much like a computer program or something. The Ritual that he was undertaking, would essentially allow him to rewrite the code of the program and, in doing so, bind the Cursed Spirit to himself. Of course, there was far more to it than just that and, quite honestly, as long as dominion was established, then the sorcerer in charge of the ritual could alter just about anything about the Cursed Spirit – change its name, its weapon, its form, its mind, its perception, everything. The trick was understanding the code, but that was where Six-Eyes came in. See, the reason why the ancient Aeldari banned this practice, which they referred to as Daemon-Binding, was because they didn't fully understand the code.

Satoru didn't fully understand or even remotely understand it either, but Six-Eyes allowed him to bypass that need for knowledge and understanding; once he saw the actual code, he'd understand everything there was to know about it – how to alter it, how to erase portions of it, how to add to it. But, of course, all of this paled in comparison to the actual knowledge of how to create his own Cursed Spirits, ones forged from his own growing soul. Shalaxi would be the first and last time he ever stole from one of the Four. Because, after this, he would never need to.

"I, Gojo Satoru, claim every fiber of your being – all that is you, all that is yours, is now mine." He said, smiling as he reached out and placed his pointer finger right over Shalaxi's heart. The Cursed Spirit was immobile and completely in his mercy. If he wanted to, Satoru could use Purple to completely erase Shalaxi from existence or even use True Negative Cursed Energy to torture the Cursed Spirit until there was nothing left of it; what was that if not total domination? The Ritual chains awakened and wrapped around the metaphysical organ, connecting the Cursed Spirit to Satoru himself. The chains hardened and the binding was complete.

Shalaxi Helbane no longer existed – or, at least, not unless Satoru allowed her to, which he honestly wasn't going to because this whole thing would've been pointless, otherwise.

"Alright," He said, smiling. "Let's begin."

A distant, rumbling scream echoed – a scream of impotent rage, of fury, of vengeance, of agony. Something, somewhere, incredibly powerful, was very very very angry at him. And Satoru was pretty sure he knew who or what was screaming – the Thirsty Bitch. Briefly, Satoru wondered if losing Shalaxi Helbane was a painful experience for Slaanesh. The answer was probably yes and not the sort of pain that would've otherwise brought pleasure; no, this was just plain, vanilla pain. A great and crushing wave of Cursed Energy rushed towards him. Satoru's eyes widened as the border between the physical world and the Cursed Realm thinned before his very eyes. The Thirsty Bitch was throwing a hissy fit of epic proportions and was, quite literally, coming after him.

Or, at least, that's what it wanted to do, before Satoru felt yet another, more familiar presence suddenly intervening – Tzeentch. Just as the border between the two realms threatened to tear itself apart, his boss appeared, all fire and feathers, an even bigger and greater wave of Cursed Energy colliding against Slaanesh. And, honestly, Satoru could've sworn he felt Tzeentch winking at him, before the barrier between the two realms stabilized and he no longer felt anything from the Cursed Realm.

"What the shit." Satoru's brows furrowed for a moment, before he shrugged.

Well... that just happened. Good thing it didn't disrupt the ritual. The remnants of Shalaxi Helbane still stood before him – still the same shape, carrying the same weapons, but its eyes were now little more than inky black pools, devoid of rationality and personality. Well, not quite, Satoru mused. The code was still there. It was just that the program wasn't switched on yet. And so he was left with a thing, some kind of Cursed Spirit, that was now to do with as he willed.

Smiling, Satoru reached out and unraveled the very being of the creature that used to be Shalaxi Helbane, a mess of scripts and codes and rules exploding before his eyes. And, immediately, because of Six-Eyes, Satoru understood. Truly, it was frighteningly easy to see how the Aeldari failed to master this ritual. One of their most common mistakes, Satoru figured, was their failure to disconnect the bound entity from its master. Because, despite the fact that the remnant of Shalaxi Helbane was now bound to him, it was also still very much bound to its master. And it Satoru didn't edit that part out or alter it, then it was only a matter of time before the Thirsty Bitch was able to reclaim what it incorrectly believed belonged to it. And because the code was, frankly, nearly impossible to decipher, Satoru could see this being a very common mistake that quite likely led to a lot of deaths and a lot of suffering.

That was the first thing Satoru altered, changing it so that the new entity was entirely bound to him and him alone. He didn't want to change too much, however, as Satoru did enjoy Shalaxi's martial skill and, if he was being honest, she was better than him, in terms of pure physical skill. He could use a servant like that, one of pure physical might, like Toji. Beyond that, everything was fair game. The crab arms had to go, no matter how efficient and dangerous they might've been; something about arm pincers just seemed... fucking lame. The hooves would have to go as well. He didn't like the way they looked. Satoru's brows furrowed. "Hmm, what else don't I like about you?"

The horns, if nothing else, would just make her less aerodynamic and also lame and gay. And, since Satoru was not any of the three, he got rid of the horns too. The hair was cool. The lack of a nose made Shalaxi look like a version of Voldemort who also happened to be a drag queen; so, he added an actual nose.

The code, Satoru realized, dictated everything there was about Shalaxi – down to the atomic level. And it was only through Six-Eyes that any of it made any semblance of sense at all. In fact, without Six-Eyes, he wouldn't even be able to perceive the code. Though, he supposed, calling it a 'code' was a little reductive. It was more like a narrative, honestly, a story of Shalaxi and her purpose. Cursed Energy, after all, wasn't like physical matter; more than anything, it followed the will of emotions. And that was, perhaps, why the code would've been almost impossible for anyone else to perceive, simply because it was just... fragments of emotions and will.

Six-Eyes forced them to make sense, compiling all the fleeting and fluttering bits and bringing cohesion out of chaos.

So, unless someone had Six-Eyes, this ritual was practically impossible to ever get right.

But then that was why Satoru was the Honored One.

After that, Satoru changed her height as well. He didn't need a towering servant, who attracted attention and got shot from every conceivable angle, or one who inspired fear and shit. Honestly, Shalaxi would've been a hundred times deadlier if she'd just been the size of a normal human – just as strong, just as fast, but was now a very small target. Yeah, Shalaxi worked best as a quick and dexterous fighter, who was just tall enough to be somewhat imposing, but not so tall that everyone and their dog could see her when she was standing still.

On and on it went. Satoru had no idea how much time passed as he went through every single line of code that governed Shalaxi's remnant until... all that remained was just... something... and someone else entirely. The Bound Cursed Spirit now stood around the same height as Satoru himself, maybe a little taller. The skin tone remained unchanged, but it now possessed only four limbs and no horns or tails or any other of the weird shit the Thirsty Bitch decided to add for some weird reason, like that third leg that was swinging between its loin cloth – sheesh. So, now, there were no genitals at all – Cursed Spirits didn't need them to begin with. He also had to shrink the spear and got rid of the whip entirely, since it kind of worked against Shalaxi most of the time if Satoru was being honest; instead, he replaced it with a dagger, which was about as simple as altering the code that governed the whip's form.

The code that governed the Cursed Spirit's mind was a bit harder to alter, however, but not entirely impossible. With everything Shalaxi had done, however, her story was pretty much impossible to just change without destroying the one thing he wanted out of this, which was a martial champion. And so, Satoru didn't. This new Cursed Spirit would remember its time as Shalaxi, remember every horrific thing it did as a former champion of Slaanesh, but it would also hate everything it'd done and strive to be better, while also having full and absolute obedience and loyalty to Satoru himself.

"Perfect," Satoru said, wiping the sweat from his brows as he took a step back to admire his handiwork. A new name was the last and, perhaps, most important step. "And your new name shall be Nobara, after a dear student of mine, whom I lost."

And then, he grinned, seeing the build up and formation of a very familiar Innate Technique.

Interesting. He had no idea that was even possible.

"I guess names do have a lot of power, huh?"


AN: Chapter 42 is up on (Pat)reon.